Thoughtless
by Wendy-girl
Summary: While Harry's dealing with Umbridge and dreams of dark corridors, Hermione's dealing with the impending death of her sick mom. Rated for cutting, and (later) contemplated suicide.


In memory of the Wendy-lady, August 1956-April 2004. You've flown to Neverland to stay forever. I love you, Mum   
Order of the Phoenix story line and all characters are J.K. Rowlings. The idea of Hermione's personal struggles come from me. There is cutting, and later contemplated suicide. Just to warn you. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO TRIGGER OR CONDONE CUTTING. Life is too precious, and humans are too precious.  
  
** Thoughtless**  
  
As our world, the magical world, began its downward spiral, my own world collapsed around me, and I was left blinking foolishly in the ruins, vainly trying piece it back together again.  
I had had a wonderful childhood, better than the average one. I'm an only child, but my parents, both dentists, loved me and each other, which is more than many families can say. We were happy, almost too happy, and looking back on it, had more than our fair share of good luck.  
I don't know why I'm telling you this. Maybe it's because I need to let someone know, or I'll go insane. Maybe... there's so many maybes to life. Are all the maybes what make life so fragile, so delicate? Maybe....  
The summer between my fourth year and fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the one I was talking about. Harry, one of my best friends, had just faced Lord Voldemort, and though he had lived, it left with him with serious scars. Already Voldemort was destroying lives. He destroyed Cedric's easily enough, and from what I've seen, the memories of Harry's brush with Voldemort were slowly eating away at him, decaying his essence, his being. Whatever it was, Harry wasn't himself fifth year. But I'm jumping ahead.  
Returning home from Hogwarts after my fourth year, I was full of talk about the Triwizard Tournament, and Voldemort's rise. My first night home, at dinner, I was chatting away to my mum and dad, and my great-uncle and aunt. No one at school would believe it, I don't think, but at home I'm rather talkative. I was so animated, jumping from emotion to emotion, waving my hands in the air, pushing back my still bushy brown hair. I never noticed the silence. I noticed, but took no note, of the purple scarf wrapped around Mum's head.  
In a silence, as I gulped water from my glass, preparing to continue, my great-uncle turned to me.  
"Honey," he said, slightly patronizing, "you do realize your mother just had part of her brain removed last week."  
Sweet Jesus. Oh dear lord. Talk about a welcome home. I looked around the table, trying to find someone who would smile and tell me he'd just been joking, just trying to get me to stop talking for half a minute. Dad and Mum couldn't decide between looking at me to see how I would react and shamefully gazing at the blue and white checkered tablecloth.  
"I need to go," I said abruptly, and throwing down my napkin, I ran out of the dining room and into my bathroom.  
I quickly stripped and turned on the water. Stepping into the shower, I lifted my face, welcoming the hot water. With it running down my cheeks, I couldn't tell the difference between that and the tears I could no longer hold back.  
"Shit," I swore in a low, hoarse voice, smacking my clenched fist against the wall. I followed that relatively mild word with every swearword I'd ever heard, and a few I'd made up, hitting the wet wall each time.  
I finally ran out of things to say, and just stood there, letting the water fall over me, wishing it would wash what I'd heard and any betraying thoughts about the future right out of my brain, cleansing my mind as well as my body.  
I don't clearly remember what I did during the weeks of waiting for the biopsy report. I didn't touch a book, not even one for school. All I can remember was an incredible lethargy, gripping my whole being. I listlessly sat on my bed, tormented by my too-vivid imagination. I didn't write, and the letters from Ron that Pig brought lay scattered on my floor, unopened.  
What lifted me out of the torture chamber I'd created was my mother and father, bringing me the news. I don't know why it helped, for the news certainly wasn't good. Mum had brain cancer, level 4, the worst one. And not the tumor that sits clumped together, like a golf ball. No, nothing as hopeful as that. Her tumor was the spiderweb kind, laced through her brilliant mind like a cobweb, ensnaring all her hopes of seeing me drive, graduate, get a job, have kids. Ensnaring her and Dad's dreams of growing old together.  
I guess it was knowing what we were up against. That must have been what got me living again. I read Ron's many letters, progressively more worried, and Harry's one or two short, angry notes. I even wrote back, and did my homework. Only once did I get sidetracked, and found myself searching through my spell books for something that would kill cancer.  
I was asked to go with Ron to some place in London where people fighting Voldemort were meeting and planning for the new battles that had to be fought. I told them maybe later in the summer.  
By mid-July, I was desperate to go. Each day Mum was turning into someone new. Her short term memory was eaten at, so she would ask you the same question five or six times in the same five minutes. Her eyesight was weakening, to the point where she was declared legally blind. Her chemo and steroids made her retain water, so soon her slim figure had bloated beyond recognition. The radiation made her blonde hair fall out, and her pain killers made her emotional, irritable, and weepy.  
I finally brought up the subject of my going to London with her and Dad, and after much discussion, a date was decided on.  
If only I had gone sooner. Do you think it would have helped? I mean really, when you get right down to it? But of course you can't answer. I sometimes get caught in the if onlys. I try not to obsess over it too much, but its hard. If only I had gone sooner. If only I hadn't gone on errands with Mum and Dad. If only Dad had come into the store with us.  
But it all happened. A week or so before I left, I did go on errands with my parents. And Dad needed to go do something else, so Mum and I went to the grocery store. My beautiful, capable Mum fell to pieces before my eyes in that store. She who used to fly through the store confidently, with a smile for everyone, and a secret laugh, shared only with me, walked slowly down the aisles, a puzzled, unattractive frown on her pudgy face.  
After an eternity in hell, we got everything we needed, and were laboriously making our way to the checkout, when she discovered she didn't have the money Dad had given her. She panicked, upset at herself for being unable to do the simplest things. I told her to wait, and ran outside, hoping Dad would Apparte next to me. But of course, he's a Muggle, and how in the world was he to know we needed him?  
Who knows what happened next. My heart was breaking, and that takes up all the memory space for that half an hour. But it worked out somehow, for eventually we were in the car on the way home, our groceries in the back with me. I sat, silent, deadpan, but crying, crying, crying for my mummy, and for the naïve Hermione who was dying a most painful death by experience and reality.  
Next thing I knew, I was in my room, the door locked, staring at my scissors. Purple handled, silver bladed scissors. I don't think its possible for me to ever erase those from my memory. Slowly, as if time didn't matter, I picked up the scissors, fitted them to my hand. Opened the blades. That's another thing I'll never forget. The light hitting and shining off those blades.  
Dreamily, I rested one sharp edge on my left arm. Unthinking. Mind cleared. Just the whiteness of my arm, and the purple so sharply outlined. Tears dripped down my face. I remember the tears. Salt tears. And then, I pressed down, and felt the blade bite into my arm. Pulling it back, I watched, and admired, the first red droplets well up. I moved to my left hand. Pressing, pulling back. Soon a bloody asterisk the size of a quarter was carved into the area below my thumb, on the back of my hand.  
I readjusted my grip, and opened the scissors only a little. I caught a bit of skin between the tips of the blades, and firmly pressed the handles together. My breath caught in my throat at the pain as the blades forced their way towards each other through my skin. The pain went away, though, as the blades met. I snipped the skin on the back of my hand several more times, then switched to my right hand. The scissors felt more awkward in my left hand, but by the time the back of my right hand was a collection of bleeding v's I no longer noticed.  
My trance ended, and I laid down the scissors, gently placing them just so on my desk. That naïve Hermione was dead now. Those purple handled scissors ended her last, gasping breaths.  
I calmly unlocked my door and strolled into my bathroom, where I washed my hands carefully, using soap to clean the cuts, and once they were dry, I rubbed on disinfectant, and got on with life.  
But by the time I stepped inside Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London, I was wearing long sleeves everyday to cover the renewing supply of fresh cuts.


End file.
